Noni, the Cocker Spaniel.

Over the New Year, Mum related the incident of how she found two stray dogs near the neighbourhood padang, specifically an Alsation and a Cocker Spaniel. It would seem that my area is a popular spot for dog-dumping and I grow increasingly pissed at people who have little consideration for both humans and animals.

The Alsation was pretty old and emaciated and therefore, a call to SPCA was made…together with MPPJ since we had to boot the other stray who had been coming to our house for meals for the past few months already. The Cocker Spaniel, a two year old – according to the vet – and a mummy, we kept even though we had a couple of adoption offers.

Now I’m the kind of person who likes to know how an adopter is going to care for a dog before I hand the creature over to him/her. When I don’t know the person, I will never ever say yes. AND when that person has a bad history with pets, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will say a big resounding no. Two people asked for Noni – don’t ask me why and how Mum ended up with such a name for her. One we knew, the other we didn’t. The one we knew had a bad rep*.

* This person was a relative of a neighbour with young children. Her 16 year old (or was it 15?) wanted to take care of a stray puppy that we found. He seemed adament and promised that he would care for the creature. I reluctantly let my Mum agree even though I knew that the boy was just, what we would call, hangat-hangat tahi ayam. That is to say to get something just out of sheer excitement and want but without full knowledge of responsibility and etc.

A few weeks went passed and we found out that the puppy went missing. Now you don’t just lose a puppy like that. You lose it because you never bothered to spend time to discipline it, walk the dog with a leash or even accompany it. You just open the gate and hope it would come back or that it would listen to you. Now that same person wants to adopt Noni. Can you see why we said no?

You see, I just want to say this to people out there who are thinking of getting a pet be it a cat, dog, fish or whatever.

Caring for a pet is like caring for a child. That creature is dependent on you for everything – protection, food, water, affection, shelter. If you do not have the time to spare to discipline it, if you don’t have the stamina to constantly look after a creature, if you don’t have enough room in your home…DO NOT, for crying out loud, get a pet just because you feel like it. By doing that, you may condemn a poor creature to a life of misery and pain.

If you must have a pet especially a dog, spend some time disciplining it. Neuter your animals so they don’t go around breeding like rabbits. If you are blessed with a litter of young ones, do the responsible CIVILISED thing and give them away to people. Don’t just put them in a box and dump them somewhere. Spend time with your pets so they don’t become psychos – there are pets who are so starved of attention that they have behavioural problems. You know who I blame? The owners.

A life is still a life no matter if it is animal or human. Would you do the same if it was a baby/child?

Related

You may also like

13 Comments

Woohooo!!! =d> Good one Mei. If only all pet/dogs owners or potential ones think like you, this world of pets would be a better place to live in.

However, I’m one of those guilty ones. I have to let my dogs loose for their evening/late night adventures coz if I did have them on a leash, they would be taking ME for a walk and not the other way around. I’ve tried to discipline them but sometimes, some dogs are just beyond that. More so when they are not pedigree. :-<

Yvy: Try MKA’s programmes for training dogs. I heard they are super…and these days, dunno what people can do to dogs – had one neighbour who lost his dog to a couple of strangers. They took the dog (while it was out on its night walks alone – like your dog la), tied the poor creature, beat it and then dumped it in the nearby monsoon drain. :((

Hi! Sorry for the very late comment but I just stumbled upon ur blog and just had the urge to comment 🙂

1. Noni is such a beauty!
2. Agree with all ur opinions re. ppl and animals. M’sians, in general, have yet to change their attitude towards animals i.e. getting it into their numbskulls that animals are not objects and/or playthings that they can fuss over one day and dump in the garbage the next, when they’re tired of it. Sometimes I just wish I could give these ppl a taste of their own medicine i.e do unto them wat they do unto the animals. Get so very infuriated when I hear of the things ppl do! x(

Sigh, our ppl have a looooong way to go :-< And I believe it has a lot to do with how kids are being brought up. If parents dun teach their kids to respect all living beings (or worse, are cruel to animals themselves), the kids will just follow suit.